Lately Vaughn has been super into American Ninja Warrior, a show that is basically just people competing to best each other's time in obstacle courses of varying degrees of difficulty. You have to be 21 years old to be on the show, but that hasn't stopped Vaughn from starting early training and he gets frustrated when we won't construct a replica of the 16 foot 'warped wall' or other elements featured on the courses.

Enter parkour. Although it's been around for a while and, like our Instagram accounts, we're several years behind the peak, I thought this might be a way to get him to stop literally climbing our walls and hanging off his door.

Vaughn makes it look easy

Revolution Parkour in Beaverton offered a sweet 'free class for new students' deal so I signed all three of us up for a beginning parkour class on Saturday morning. As we pulled into the parking lot and saw groups of kids getting dropped off by parents in mini-vans it hit me -we could potentially be the only adults in the class. I shared this with Jacob who said, "Yeah, and the best part will be all the other parents will be sitting and watching us."

As it turned out, we WERE the only adults among the kids - 17 kids in fact - ranging in age from about 9 to 12. The only other female in the class was probably 11 and she sidled up to me about ten minutes in and decided that we were going to stick together the entire time until I found myself actively trying to lose her. She and a "almost 13" year old boy seemed to take turns stalking me with alternating praise and constructive criticism. My own child was off doing his thing but I had been adopted by these two who turned me into their pet project. After she helpfully corrected Jacob he whispered to me, "How did she go from cute to annoying so fast?"

After 10 minutes of stretching, we learned basic forward/side/and back rolls (which aren't easy if you're trying to undo a lifetime of doing somersaults in a particular way) and then plodded through a changing course of blocks, tires, and balance beams. Due to the number of kids in the class, we weren't moving very fast so I was surprised to find myself sweating. Vaughn had so much fun that he asked if he could stay for the next segment and is angling to go back next weekend. I'm not sure I'll go back and do the class again but it was fun to try something new.